Improvement in wood-screws



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GEORGE FREEMAN, on NEW YoEK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN WOOD-SCREWS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 29,963, dated September 11, 1860.

To all whom it may concern Be it-known that I, GEORGE FREEMAN, of

the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Wood-Screws; and I do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification, is such a full and clear description thereof as to enable others skilled in the manufactureand use of woodscrews to make and use this my invention.

In the use of wood-screws for various kinds of work, especially where the wood is hard or the screws are what may be termed large size, it generally is desirable and commonly necessary, as wood-screws have been previously constructed, not merely to bore a hole for the reception and bite of the body and threaded portion of the screw in the wood or pieces of wood, as the case may be, but also to form a countersink or larger aperture by rimming out the orifice, as above, at its mouth or entry end to receive the usually tapershaped head of the screw, in order that said head may be embedded in the wood or be flush with the surface of the latter, as required. This is not only desirable for appearance sake to do away with an unsightly projection of the screw-head, but to secure to the screw a firmer grip, hug, or drawing action by establishing for the screw-head a proper seat or bearing. To countersink the head of the screw, however, usually requires a separate bit or rimming-tool to be used before the screw 1s inserted andafter the hole has been drilled or bored for the body of the screw. This not only involves additional labor and loss of time, and that to a serious extent, in a piece ofwork' where many screws have to be in sorted, but it is seldom that the countersinking or tool corresponds with the precise angle or shapeof the head of the screw, so that but an imperfect seat or bearing is often formed for the head and an unsightly gap left in the surface of the wood. All these objectionsand there are or maybe others, which it is not necessary here to nameare removed by my invention, which consists in combining with a wood-screw a cutter or cutters connected with or projecting from the head of applied thereto, and Fig. 2 an outer or end view of the screw-head as improved.

In the figures, A represents the body of the screw, which may have any kind of thread out upon it and be made taper at its inner end or otherwise.

B is the head of the screw, (here shown of the usual taper shape,) witha channel a in it to receive the end of a screw-driver to turn the screw, but said or other suitable head he ing formed or provided with the novel addition of a cutter or cutteglnarranged down or along the sides oftliehead and preferably of a graduating form, so as to cut easy at first and gradually heavier or wider as the head of the screw enters the wood. These cutters may be made by reducing certain portions of the head of the screw, so as to cause them to project from the sides of the head, or, what is equivalent thereto, extending certain portions of the head to produce a like eifect, and this may either be accomplished by an after operation in the manufacture of the screw or when forming the blank? As before observed, there may be any number-one or m0reof these cutters formed around the head of the screw. ,Thus' they may be sufficiently thick or numerous to make of the screw-head a rose-head-rimming tool. Said cutter or cutters, too, may be situated at different points around the head of the screw, relatively, say,

to its channel (1. Thus they may be interme- I diate tothe ends of the channel, orthey may be situated at the ends of it--say. one at the one end of the channel on the one side thereof and another at the other end of the channel on the opposite side of the same and so as to face in opposite directions. 'Such cutter or cutters also may either be made straightedged or beveled or scalloped, and sharp or blunt, as desired, likewise may be set running down, the sides of the head in a plane parallel with the axis of the screw, as here shown, or in an oblique direction thereto, as, for instan 3, inclining backwardly, so as to facilitate th rrnoval of or work out the cuttings or sha ings they make in countersinking th mfure for thelregeption of the The combination, with a wood-screw, of a conntersinking tool or cutter, by providing or forming the head of the screw with a cutter or cutters for operation substantially in the manner described.

In testimony whereof I- have signed my name to this specification before two subscribin gwitnesses.

GEO. FREEMAN.

Witnesses:

JOHN MACKENZIE, WM. D. JUDsoN. 

